The Truth About the Savolta Case

Eduardo Mendoza

In 1917, the Savolta Company's armaments factory in Barcelona appears
to be flourishing, but all is not well behind the scenes.

Legal clerk Javier Miranda, working for the shadowy lawyer Cortabanyes,
is picked by Savolta director Lepprince as an unwitting go-between in
organising violence against union leaders and workplace agitators.
Then an investigative journalist he has befriended is killed, and
soon afterwards assassinations of the Savolta company directors begin.
And the police inspector who probes this too aggressively finds himself
transferred first to Morocco and then to Guinea.

Miranda himself is uncritical and unwilling to rock the boat, but is drawn
into personal involvement in the Savolta case and the shadowy underworld
of Barcelona through a liaison with a gypsy dancer. Part of his story
in The Truth About the Savolta Case is told through documents —
depositions and transcripts from a later legal case, letters, newspaper
reports — and part of it in the first person, while other perspectives
are presented by an omniscient narrator. The mosaic structure extends
to variation in tone and manner and the use of elements from the mystery
and romance genres.

The result is both a compelling story and a vivid portrait of Barcelona
at the end of the First World War, fractured by stark class divides and
shaken by social unrest. The Truth About the Savolta Case was published
in 1975 as La verdad sobre el caso Savolta and reflects something of
the turbulence of Spain's transition to democracy, but subtly so.